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Business

Principles of Marketing

Philip Kotler; Gary Armstrong; Sridhar Balasubramanian

A widely used introductory marketing text built around the idea that marketing creates value for customers in order to capture value in return. It explains how firms understand markets and buyers, choose target segments and positioning, and design product, price, distribution, and communication programs.

Prerequisites: No prior business study is required; the book is written for a first course in marketing.

Difficulty Level
Beginner
Academic Level
Undergraduate
marketingcustomer valuesegmentationmarketing mixbrandingTextbook

01 / Reading Guide

Reading Guide

Citation

Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., & Balasubramanian, S. (2026). Principles of Marketing (20th ed.). Pearson.

Chapter Summary

The twentieth edition, published by Pearson in January 2026 (copyright 2027), has twenty chapters in four parts. Pearson describes it as following the marketing process, from understanding consumers, through customer-driven strategy and the marketing mix, to broader integrating topics, and built around a five-step customer-value framework that shows how marketing creates value for customers and captures value in return as profit. Each chapter opens with learning objectives, a preview and an opening vignette, and closes with a review, key terms, discussion questions and critical-thinking exercises. "Real Marketing" highlights examine practice at companies such as Amazon, LinkedIn, Airbnb and Spotify; the book also includes a sample marketing plan and a "Marketing by the Numbers" appendix on the financial concepts behind marketing decisions. New in this edition are AI learning objectives in every chapter, an end-of-chapter project that asks students to use AI tools on a digital marketing scenario, twenty new company cases, and coverage of disruptions such as economic swings, extreme environmental events and social and political turmoil.

Part 1: Defining Marketing and the Marketing Process

Chapters 1–2: Marketing: Creating Customer Value and Engagement; Company and Marketing Strategy: Partnering to Build Customer Engagement, Value, and Relationships

Chapter 1 defines marketing around customer value and engagement and introduces the framework that organizes the book. Chapter 2 places marketing within company-wide strategy; as its title indicates, the emphasis is on partnering to build customer engagement, value and relationships.

Part 2: Understanding the Marketplace and Consumer Value

Chapters 3–6: Analyzing the Marketing Environment; Managing Marketing Information to Gain Customer Insights; Consumer Markets and Buyer Behavior; Business Markets and Business Buyer Behavior

The first step of the framework: understanding the market. The chapters cover the forces in the marketing environment, marketing research and information for customer insight, and buyer behaviour in consumer and business markets.

Part 3: Designing a Customer Value–Driven Strategy and Mix

Chapter 7: Customer Value–Driven Marketing Strategy: Creating Value for Target Customers

The strategic core of the book: deciding which customers to target and how to create value for them, the choice that the marketing-mix chapters which follow then put into effect.

Chapters 8–11: Products, Services, and Brands: Building Customer Value; Developing New Products and Managing the Product Life Cycle; Pricing: Understanding and Capturing Customer Value; Pricing Strategies: Advanced Topics

Product and price. Two chapters cover products, services and brands, and new product development across the product life cycle. Two cover pricing: how prices reflect and capture customer value, and more advanced pricing strategies.

Chapters 12–13: Marketing Channels: Delivering Customer Value; Retailing and Wholesaling

Distribution: designing and managing marketing channels, then the retail and wholesale businesses within them.

Chapters 14–16: Engaging Consumers and Communicating Customer Value: Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy; Advertising and Public Relations; Personal Selling and Sales Promotion

Promotion: an integrated marketing communications strategy, followed by chapters on its main tools.

Part 4: Extending Marketing

Chapters 17–20: Digital Marketing; Creating Competitive Advantage; The Global Marketplace; Sustainable Marketing: Social Responsibility and Ethics

The final part widens the view: digital marketing, competitive strategy, international marketing, and sustainability, social responsibility and ethics.

Key Concepts

Part 1: Marketing and the marketing process

  • Customer value: what marketing aims to create for customers, the starting point of the book's framework.
  • Customer engagement and relationships: building lasting, profitable connections with customers rather than single sales.
  • Capturing value: the return to the firm, in sales, profit and customer loyalty, from creating customer value.

Part 2: Understanding the marketplace

  • Marketing environment: the forces outside the firm's control that shape marketing.
  • Customer insights: understanding gained from marketing information and research.
  • Buyer behaviour: how consumers and business buyers make purchase decisions.

Part 3: Strategy and mix

  • Customer value-driven strategy: choosing target customers and the value to offer them.
  • Product life cycle: the stages a product passes through, which shape strategy over time.
  • Pricing and customer value: understanding customer value in order to set prices that capture it.
  • Integrated marketing communications: coordinating all promotional tools to deliver a consistent message.

Part 4: Extending marketing

  • Digital marketing: marketing through online, social and mobile channels.
  • Competitive advantage: offering greater customer value than competitors.
  • Sustainable marketing: marketing considered in the light of social responsibility and ethics.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

  • A single organizing framework. The five-step customer-value framework and the order of the parts (market understanding, then strategy and mix, then extensions) give the course a clear logic that students can apply to any case.
  • Built for teaching. Learning objectives, previews, opening vignettes, end-of-chapter reviews, key terms and exercises are standard in every chapter, and the sample marketing plan and Marketing by the Numbers appendix support projects and the quantitative side of marketing.
  • Current examples. The publisher lists new company cases, Real Marketing highlights about well-known digital companies, and AI learning objectives and projects in every chapter.
  • A long revision history. The book has been revised through twenty editions, and Pearson presents it as a long-standing leader for introductory marketing courses.

Limitations

  • US orientation. The authors are based at US universities, and the examples the publisher names are mostly US companies. Students in the UK and Europe may prefer Jobber and Ellis-Chadwick.
  • Breadth over depth. With twenty chapters covering every element of the mix, each topic receives an introductory treatment; strategy and theory are developed further in other books.
  • Rapidly dating examples. The emphasis on AI and digital examples keeps the book current, but such material ages quickly between editions.
  • Platform dependence. Some resources, including assignments and practice, are delivered through Pearson's MyLab and eTextbook platforms.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is a natural main text for a first course in marketing. OpenStax's Principles of Marketing by Gomez Albrecht, Green and Hoffman covers similar ground as a free, openly licensed textbook and is a good companion or a free alternative. Jobber and Ellis-Chadwick's Principles and Practice of Marketing is a UK and European text covering the discipline from fundamental concepts to strategy and implementation, with European cases; it suits UK courses as an alternative, or as a second, more detailed book.

After the introductory course, Kotler and Keller's Marketing Management offers a broader, managerial framework by one of the same authors. Ferrell, Hartline and Hochstein's Marketing Strategy: Text and Cases is the strategy-level text, using a marketing plan framework and cases, and builds on Chapters 2 and 7 and Part 4. Shelby Hunt's Marketing Theory examines the foundations of marketing as an academic discipline, for advanced or postgraduate students.

How to Use This Book

The book is for first-year students in business and related subjects, and for anyone taking an introductory marketing course. No previous business study is needed.

A practical plan:

  • Core: Chapters 1, 2 and 7 give the framework and strategic logic; read them first and return to them often. Then Part 2 (Chapters 3–6), which supplies the market understanding that strategy depends on.
  • Marketing mix: Chapters 8–16, which a course may cover selectively. A useful minimum is Chapters 8, 10, 12 and 14, one for each element of the mix.
  • Extensions: Chapter 17 on digital marketing and Chapter 20 on sustainable marketing are relevant to most courses; Chapters 18 and 19 suit courses with a strategy or international focus.

Use the opening vignettes and Real Marketing highlights as case material, and work the end-of-chapter exercises and AI and Digital Marketing projects. Use the sample marketing plan as a model for any group project, and the Marketing by the Numbers appendix alongside the pricing chapters.